connected

(continued from the previous entry)

I don't really remember the order things happened next. At some point he bent me back over the pillows for the next implement, and, skipping the middle range, went straight to the Master cane I bought him for his birthday last year, a 12mm dragon cane with a polished ebony handle. It's a beautiful toy, stiff and sleek and heavy enough to leave bruises even on a spanking model who doesn't mark easily. I'm not sure if he gave me the first set of twelve before we stopped to take stock or afterwards. I remember that number six made me burst into tears, made me feel weak and tired and unable to cope. I know that my tiredness was bothering him, that he was searching for a way to fully and fiercely get my attention, to touch me to the core. There was no point me counting down the strokes until I was allowed to sleep, we were both looking for more than that. I was striving to be obedient but obedience alone wasn't giving us the emotional fire we craved. We're a stubborn pair and the night was still young; neither of us was willing to give up yet.

When the cane wasn't seeming to draw me out of myself, even the heavy strokes of the Master cane that cut deep into muscle and left vivid welts, he changed tack. I was asked to change into a slinky nightie. He wanted me to feel glamorous and sensual, to be fully on board with what was happening. When he got the wooden paddle out of the toybox I smiled to myself - I used to be terrified of this paddle, and now it's the toy we use to turn me on, the one that "switches on my masochism light". I'm capable of sexually enjoying the physical sensation of pain but it requires a precise set of circumstances, and submission alone doesn't seem to be enough to trigger the effect. (At least, not yet.) This paddle makes me aware of the full curve of my ample cheeks. It's a sex toy for sensual adults, round and smooth and not too heavy. My previous terror of it has lingered in the form of an electric excitement. When I become aware of myself, wrists pinned in the small of my back, bottom sticking up in the air and the paddle igniting a glowing heat in first one buttock, then the other, the fact of what's happening to me is unbelievably erotic. I'm turned on far more by my awareness of the experience as a whole, imagining how the scene must look, than I am by than the white-hot flare of each flat, crisp smack.

We were getting somewhere, but I was still kind of emotionally limp, still not engaging with him in the way he was looking for. The next implement in my "tour" was a riding crop, which, I have to admit, I'd been hoping he would use on me earlier in the evening. I trusted him, and was hopeful that maybe this would rekindle my overstimulated senses, bring me out of my passivity. Maybe it would turn me on until I was alive with sensation, begging for each stroke.

"I want you to stay still," he told me, after I'd had a sip of water and bent back over the pillows. "And I want you to stay quiet. I'm going to give you thirty-six strokes with the crop, and any audible sound you make will earn you three strokes afterward with the Master cane."

We'd played silence games like this before, and on occasion they'd tipped me instantly into subspace, triggering my natural pride into trying to take as much as possible, and immersing me in a raw and private world of pain which, not able to be relieved through my usual cries, built up inside me until something imploded in my head and I started to fly. But tonight? I was trying too hard to be obedient to have many clear thoughts in my head, but I remember feeling aggrieved as he started the whipping. He kept count for me and I gritted my teeth, trying to breathe through the pain. I remember thinking that I didn't want any more strokes from the Master cane, that thirty-six was unfair, that it was too many. I remember thinking that it was no fun for me, not being allowed to cry out. I couldn't relax, couldn't float on the sensation, couldn't make it something erotic. I just had to endure it. I felt victimised. I felt like someone being whacked unfairly, struggling to not respond, to not give an inch.

I gasped, loudly, at around six or seven. I think he let me get away with that one, but the next stroke that really got to me brought a loud flood of tears. I wept as much out of injured pride as out of pain, hating that he'd forced me to bring further punishment on myself, that he was going to break me whatever I did. And yet ... that desperation, that helplessness, was hotter than anything that had happened so far that evening. No matter what I did, I couldn't win. This wasn't what I was in the mood for, wasn't what I'd wanted him to do next. And that was what tipped me over. That was what exposed the core of me in the way he'd been seeking all along. Each time he forced a cry out of me I sobbed, hysterically, taking advantage of the opportunity to weep and weep. And each time he'd wait until I was calm, soothing me with caresses and soft words, holding my shoulders as I sobbed into the pillow. I was broken down completely. There was no pride left. He'd won, and he was going to keep going. I'd thought I'd been helpless before, but I'd just not resisted. Now I appreciated the difference, and the helplessness I knew now prompted a different sort of acceptance. I wasn't just letting him do what he wanted and trying to be obedient. I was completely present in my skin. All the chakras flared open along my spine, like a line of beacons passing their light from hill to hill. Something had clicked into place. He'd done absolutely the right thing. On a superficial level it was horrible and I hated the unfairness of it. But the vulnerability of it forced me to open up, to be vividly present in what was happening. Despite all my efforts and good intentions earlier in the evening, this was what finally allowed me to offer myself up to him in that intangible, indescribable way.

I don't really understand it. After thirty-six hard strokes with the crop I'd earned myself nine canestrokes, and I was raw and exhausted. He held me and soothed me as I cried myself out on his shoulder. Our embrace created a tiny and self-contained bubble of intimacy. We both felt it. We could feel each other's heartbeats.

We talked a little as he brought me down. I confessed that I still felt aggreived, still hated him a little bit for pushing me so far, even as I accepted that I'd needed it, that I found being made to feel that way incredibly hot. It was very challenging for me, psychologically. I would have found the whole experience much easier if we'd been roleplaying, if I could have thrown myself into a character that felt genuinely hard done by. But instead consent and desire, stubbornness and fear warred inside me. I trusted him - I didn't believe he was going to take me past my limits. But a part of me resented the unfairness of being tricked into bringing more punishment on myself no matter how hard I tried, and a part of me resented being hurt in a way that wasn't immediately fun.

That resentment didn't run deep, of course. To the bit of my brain that was watching what was happening and appreciates an edgy non-consent scenario, I found the whole thing extremely hot. But it also provided a very real hurdle for my submission to jump over. And that jump, that push, was what clinched it. That was what left me sobbing and sated in his arms, even as my pride was still nursing its wounds, fiercely glad that he'd had the courage and the skill to take me down that road.

He gave me the option, in the end, of whether or not I wanted to take the final nine strokes. He said he was proud of me already, that I didn't need to take them to prove anything. I didn't want them - oh, boy, did I not want them - but I know myself pretty well. I knew that if I didn't take them I'd feel like I'd failed, no matter how much reassurance he gave me. My own pride hadn't been extinguished completely, and I wanted to finish what we'd started. It wasn't going to be pretty, but I needed the closure. I knew I'd regret it if I took the easy way out.

I cried twice more during that last caning, even though the final four were relatively light. Both cheeks of my bottom were inflamed and swollen, little nubs of hard bruise forming in the centre of each one and welts painting red stripes from edge to edge. I was glad when it was over. But I was even gladder that it had happened at all.